Another visit to a museum after Spanish class – this time to the Frick. Madame d’Haussonville is ever watchful, and I still cannot figure out how her eyes follow one no matter from which side you look at her. My brain was very much softened by the oppressive heat and humidity here – I saw correspondences everywhere!

Do I imagine them only?

Looking at the Old Testament stalwart by El greco brought Samuel Beckett, a very different sort of seer, to mind.

The pictorial source for the famous pose of the female at the center of J. L. David’s Rape of the Sabines has been documented as deriving from my favorite cartoonist, James Gillray, but did Gillray get his idea from…Fragonard of all people? Can you imagine a more bizarre commutation of ideas: rococo Fragonard —> acerbic, TORY, and hilarious Gillray—> righteous revolutionary propagandist, David??!

And just what is the meaning of the gleaming white silk dress that George Romney has painted onto Lady Warwick’s otherwise unimpressive figure? An entire painting about a fabric? Do you get to be a Lord or a Lady if you can illuminate your surroundings that way?